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\ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, # 

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! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ! 



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DISCOURSE, 

PREACHED AT THE DEDICATION 

OF THE 

SECOND CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH, 

NEW YORK, 
DECEMBER 7, 1826. 

V 

BY WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 



NEW YORK : "P 

PUBLISHED FOR THE SECOND CONGREGATIONAL 
UNITARIAN CHURCH. 



1826, 



o 



3 



6 



Southern District of New York, ss. 

Be it remembered, that on the 23d day of December, A.D. 1826, and in the 
fifty-first year of the Independence of the United States of America, Henry Deve- 
reuxSewall, of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the 
right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit: — 

"A Discourse, preached at the Dedication of the Second Congregational Unitarian 
Church, New Yj?rk, December 7, 1826. By William Ellery Channing." 

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, " An Act 
for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books 
to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned," 
and also to an Act, entitled, " An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, 4 An Act for 
the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, 
to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned 
and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching 
historical and other prints." 

JAMES DILL, 
Clerk of the Southern District of New York. 



In delivering this Discourse, the author was obliged to omit 
large portions ; and these are now published, at once to give 
some new views of the subject, and to unfold more fully those 
which were then exhibited. 



DISCOURSE* 



MARK xii. 29, 30. 

And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, 

Hear, O Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord : 
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 

all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, 

This is the first commandment. 

We have assembled to dedicate this building to 
the worship of the only living and true God, and to 
the teaching of the religion of his son, Jesus Christ. 
By this act we do not expect to confer on this spot 
of ground and these walls any peculiar sanctity or 
any mysterious properties. We do not suppose that, 
in consequence of rites now performed, the worship 
offered here will be more acceptable, than prayer 
uttered in the closet, or breathed from the soul in 
the midst of business ; or that the instructions de- 
livered from this pulpit will be more effectual, than 
if they were uttered in a private dwelling or the 
open air. By dedication we understand only a sol- 
emn expression of the purpose for which this build- 
ing is reared, joined with prayer to Him, who alone 
can crown our enterprise with success, that our de- 
sign may be accepted and fulfilled. For this reli- 
gious act we find, indeed, no precept in the New 



Testament, and on this account some have scrupled 
as to its propriety. But we are not among those 
who consider the written word as a statute book, by 
the letter of which every step in life must be gov- 
erned. We believe, on the other hand, that one of 
the great excellencies of Christianity is, that it does 
not deal in minute regulation, but that, having given 
broad views of duty, and enjoined a pure and disin- 
terested spirit, it leaves us to apply these rules and 
express this spirit, according to the promptings of 
the divine monitor within us, and according to the 
claims and exigencies of the ever varying conditions 
in which we are placed. We believe, too, that 
revelation is not intended to supersede God's other 
modes of instruction ; that it is not intended to 
drown, but to make more audible, the voice of na- 
ture. Now nature dictates the propriety of such 
an act as we are this -day assembled to perform. 
Nature has always taught men, on the completion 
of an important structure^ designed for public and 
lasting good, to solemnize its first appropriation 
to the purpose for which it was reared, by some 
special service. To us there is a sacredness in this 
moral instinct, in this law written on the heart ; 
and in listening reverently to God's dictates, how- 
ever conveyed, we doubt not that we shall enjoy 
his acceptance and blessing. 

I have said, we dedicate this building to the 
teaching of the gospel of Christ. But in the pre- 
sent state of the christian church, these words are 



7 

not as definite as they one day will be. This gos- 
pel is variously interpreted. It is preached in va- 
rious forms. Christendom is parcelled out into 
various sects. When, therefore, we see a new 
house of worship reared, the question immediately 
rises, To what mode of teaching Christianity is it to 
be devoted ? I need not tell you, my hearers, that 
this house has been built by that class of Christians, 
who are called Unitarians, and that the gospel will 
here be taught, as interpreted by that body of be- 
lievers. This you all know ; but perhaps all present 
have not attached a very precise meaning to the 
word, by which our particular views of Christianity 
are designated. Unitarianism has been made a term 
of so much reproach, and has been uttered in so 
many tones of alarm, horror, indignation, and scorn, 
that to many it gives only a vague impression of 
something monstrous, impious, unutterably perilous. 
To such, I would say, that this doctrine, which is 
considered by some, as the last and most perfect in- 
vention of Satan, the consummation of his blasphe- 
mies, the most cunning weapon ever forged in the 
fires of hell, amounts to this—That there is One 
God, even the Father ; and that Jesus Christ is not 
this One God, but his son and messenger, who de- 
rived all his powers and glories from the Universal 
Parent, and who came into the world not to 
claim supreme homage for himself, but to carry up 
the soul to his Father, as the Only Divine Person, 
the Only Ultimate Object of religious worship. To 
us, this doctrine seems not to have steamed up 



8 



from hell, but to have descended from the throne of 
God, and to invite and attract us thither. To us 
it seems to come from the Scriptures, with a voice 
loud as the sound of many waters, and as articulate 
and clear as if Jesus, in a bodily form, were pro - 
nouncing it distinctly in our ears. To this doc- 
trine, and to Christianity interpreted in consistency 
with it, we dedicate this building. 

That we desire to propagate this doctrine, we 
do not conceal. It is a treasure, which we wish 
not to confine to ourselves, which we dare not lock 
up in our own breasts. We regard it as given to 
us for others as well as for ourselves. We should 
rejoice to spread it through this great city, to carry 
it into every dwelling, and to send it far and wide 
to the remotest settlements of our country. Am I 
asked, why we wish this diffusion ? We dare not 
say, that we are in no degree influenced by secta- 
rian feeling ; for we see it raging around us, and we 
should be more than men, were we wholly to escape 
an epidemic passion. We do hope, however, that 
our main purpose and aim is not sectarian, but to 
promote a purer and nobler piety than now prevails. 
We are not induced to spread our opinions by the 
mere conviction that they are true ; for there are 
many truths, historical, metaphysical, scientific, lit- 
erary, which we have no anxiety to propagate. We 
regard them as the highest, most important, most 
efficient truths, and therefore demanding a firm tes- 
timony, and earnest efforts to make them known. 



9 



In thus speaking, we do not mean, that we regard 
our peculiar views as essential to salvation. Far 
from us be this spirit of exclusion, the very spirit of 
antichrist, the worst of all the delusions of popery 
and of protestantism. We hold nothing to be essen- 
tial, but the simple and supreme dedication of the 
mind, heart, and life to God and to his will. This 
inward and practical devotedness to the Supreme 
Being, we are assured, is attained and accepted 
under all the forms of Christianity. We believe, 
however, that it is favored by that truth which we 
maintain, as by no other system of faith. We re- 
gard Unitarianism as peculiarly the friend of inward, 
living, practical religion. For this we value it. 
For this we would spread it ; and we desire none 
to embrace it, but such as shall seek and derive 
from it this celestial influence. 

This character and property of Unitarian Chris- 
tianity, its fitness to promote true, deep, and living 
piety, being our chief ground of attachment to it, and 
our chief motive for dedicating this house to its in- 
culcation, I have thought proper to make this the 
topic of my present discourse. I do not propose to 
prove the truth of Unitarianism by scriptural author- 
ities, for this argument would exceed the limits of 
a sermon, but to show its superior tendency to form 
an elevated religious character. If, however, this 
position can be sustained, I shall have contributed no 
weak argument in support of the truth of our views ; 
for the chief purpose of Christianity undoubtedly 
2 



10 



is, to promote piety, to bring us to God, to fill our 
souls with that Great Being, to make us alive to 
Him ; and a religious system can carry no more 
authentic mark of a divine original, than its obvious, 
direct, and peculiar adaptation to quicken and raise 
the mind to its Creator. — In speaking thus of Uni- 
tarian Christianity as promoting piety, I ought to 
observe, that I use this word in its proper and high- 
est sense. I mean not every thing which bears the 
name of piety, for under this title superstition, 
fanaticism, and formality are walking abroad and 
claiming respect. 1 mean not an anxious frame of 
mind, not abject and slavish fear, not a dread of 
hell, not a repetition of forms, not church-going, 
not loud profession, not severe censures of others' 
irreligion ; but filial love and reverence towards 
God, habitual gratitude, cheerful trust, ready obe- 
dience, and, though last not least, an imitation of 
the ever active and unbounded benevolence of the 
Creator. 

The object of this discourse requires me to 
speak with great freedom of different systems of re- 
ligion. But let me not be misunderstood. Let 
not the uneharitableness, which I condemn, be 
lightly laid to my charge. Let it be remembered, 
that I speak only of systems, not of those who em- 
brace them. In setting forth with all simplicity 
what seem to me the good or bad tendencies of doc- 
trines, I have not a thought of giving standards or 
measures by which to estimate the virtue or vice of 



1 1 



their professors. Nothing would be more unjust, 
than to decide on men's characters from their pecu- 
liarities of faith; and the reason is plain. Such 
peculiarities are not the only causes which impress 
and determine the mind. Our nature is exposed to 
innumerable other influences. If indeed a man 
were to know nothing but his creed, were to meet 
with no human beings but those who adopt it, were 
to see no example and to hear no conversation, but 
such as were formed by it ; if his creed were to meet 
him every where, and to exclude every other object 
of thought ; then his character might be expected to 
answer to it with great precision. But our Creator 
has not shut us up in so narrow a school. The 
mind is exposed to an infinite variety of influences, 
and these are multiplying with the progress of so- 
ciety. Education, friendship, neighbourhood, public 
opinion, the state of society, " the genius of the 
place " where we live, books, events, the pleasures 
and business of life, the outward creation, our phy- 
sical temperament, and innumerable other causes, 
are perpetually pouring in upon the soul thoughts, 
views, and emotions ; and these influences are so 
complicated, so peculiarly combined in the case of 
every individual, and so modified by the original 
susceptibilities and constitution of every mind, that 
on no subject is there greater uncertainty than on 
the formation of character. To determine the pre- 
cise operation of a religious opinion amidst this host 
of influences surpasses human power. A great truth 



12 



may be completely neutralized by the countless im- 
pressions and excitements, which the mind receives 
from other sources ; and so a great error may be 
disarmed of much of its power, by the superior 
energy of other and better views, of early habits, 
and of virtuous examples. Nothing is more common 
than to see a doctrine believed without swaying the 
will. Its efficacy depends, not on the assent of 
the intellect, but on the place which it occupies in 
the thoughts, on the distinctness and vividness with 
which it is conceived, on its association with our 
common ideas, on its frequency of recurrence, and 
on its command of the attention, without which it 
has no life. Accordingly pernicious opinions are 
not seldom held by men of the most illustrious vir- 
tue. I mean not then, in commending or condemn- 
ing systems, to pass sentence on their professors. 
I know the power of the mind to select from a 
multifarious system, for its habitual use, those fea- 
tures or principles which are generous, pure, and 
ennobling, and by these to sustain its spiritual life 
amidst the nominal profession of many errors. I 
know that a creed is one thing, as written in a book, 
and another, as it exists in the minds of its advo- 
cates. In the book, all the doctrines appear in 
equally strong and legible lines. In the mind, many 
are faintly traced and seldom recurred to, whilst 
others are inscribed as with sunbeams, and are the 
chosen, constant lights of the soul. Hence, in good 
men of opposing denominations, a real agreement 



13 



may subsist as to their vital principles of faith ; and 
amidst the division of tongues, there may be unity 
of soul, and the same internal worship of God. 
By these remarks I do not mean, that error is not 
evil, or that it bears no pernicious fruit. Its ten- 
dencies are always bad. But I mean, that these 
tendencies exert themselves amidst so many coun- 
teracting influences ; and that injurious opinions so 
often lie dead, through the want of mixture with the 
common thoughts, through the mind's not absorbing 
them, and changing them into its own substance ; 
that the highest respect may, and ought to be cher- 
ished for men, in whose creed we find much to dis- 
approve. In this discourse I shall speak freely, and 
some may say severely, of Trinitarianism ; but I 
love and honor not a few of its advocates ; and in 
opposing what I deem their error, I would on no 
account detract from their worth. After these re- 
marks, I hope that the language of earnest discus- 
sion and strong conviction will not be construed into 
the want of that charity, which I acknowledge as 
the first grace of our religion. 

I now proceed to illustrate and prove the supe- 
riority of Unitarian Christianity, as a means of pro- 
moting a deep and noble piety. 

I. Unitarianism is a system most favorable to 
piety, because it presents to the mind one, and 
only one, Infinite Person, to whom supreme homage 
is to be paid. It does not weaken the energy of 
religious sentiment by dividing it among various ob- 



14 



jects. It collects and concentrates the soul on One 
Father of unbounded, undivided, unrivalled glory. 
To Him it teaches the mind to rise through all be- 
ings. Around Him it gathers all the splendors of the 
universe. To him it teaches us to ascribe whatever 
good we receive or behold, the beauty and magnifi- 
cence of nature, the liberal gifts of providence, the 
capacities of the soul, the bonds of society, and es- 
pecially the riches of grace and redemption, the 
mission, and powers, and beneficent influences of 
Jesus Christ. All happiness it traces up to the 
Father, as the sole source ; and the mind, which these 
views have penetrated, through this intimate asso- 
ciation of every thing exciting and exalting in the 
universe with One Infinite Parent, can and does of- 
fer itself up to him with the intense st and profound- 
est love, of which human nature is susceptible. The 
Trinitarian indeed professes to believe in one God. 
But three persons, having distinctive qualities and 
relations, of whom one is sent and another the send- 
er, one is given and another the giver, of whom one 
intercedes and another hears the intercession, of 
whom one takes flesh, and another never becomes 
incarnate, three persons, thus discriminated, are as 
truly three objects to the mind, as if they were ac- 
knowledged to be separate divinities ; and from the 
principles of our nature, they cannot act on the 
mind as deeply and powerfully as One Infinite Per- 
son, to whose sole goodness all happiness is ascribed. 
To multiply infinite objects for the heart, is to dis- 



15 



tract it. To scatter the attention among three 
equal persons, is to impair the power of each. 
The more strict and absolute the unity of God, the 
more easily and intimately all the impressions and 
emotions of piety flow together, and are condensed 
into one glowing thought, one thrilling love. No 
language can express the absorbing energy of the 
thought of one Infinite Father. When vitally im- 
planted in the soul, it grows and gains strength for 
ever. It enriches itself by every new view of God's 
w ord and works ; gathers tribute from all regions and 
all ages ; and attracts into itself all the ray s of beauty* 
glory, and joy, in the material and spiritual creation. 

My hearers, as you would feel the full influence 
of God upon your souls, guard sacredly, keep un- 
obscured and unsullied, that fundamental and glo- 
rious truth, that there is One, and only one, Al- 
mighty Agent in the universe, One Infinite Father. 
Let this truth dwell in me in its un corrupted sim- 
plicity, and I have the spring and nutriment of an 
ever growing piety. I have an object for my mind 
towards which all things bear me. I know whither 
to go in all trial, whom to bless in all joy, whom to 
adore in all I behold. But let three persons claim 
from me supreme homage, and claim it on different 
grounds, one for sending and another for coming to 
my relief, and I am divided, distracted, perplexed. 
My frail intellect is overborne. Instead of One 
Father, on whose arm I can rest, my mind is torn 
from object to object, and has reason to tremble lest 



18 



among so many claimants of supreme love, it 
should withhold from one or another his due. 

II. Unitarianism is the system most favorable to 
piety, because it holds forth and preserves inviolate 
the spirituality of God. " God is a spirit, and they 
that worship him must worship him in spirit and in 
truth." It is of great importance to the progress 
and elevation of the religious principle, that we 
should refine more and more our conceptions of 
God ; that we should separate from him all material 
properties, and whatever is limited or imperfect in 
our own nature ; that we should regard him as a 
pure intelligence, an unmixed and infinite Mind. 
When it pleased God to select the Jewish people 
and place them under miraculous interpositions, 
one of the first precepts given them was, that they 
should not represent God under any bodily form, 
any graven image, or the likeness of any creature. 
Next came Christianity, which had this as one of 
its great objects, to render religion still more 
spiritual, by abolishing the ceremonial and outward 
worship of former times, and by discarding those 
grosser modes of describing God, through which 
the ancient prophets had sought to impress an un- 
refined people. 

Now Unitarianism concurs with this sublime 
moral purpose of God. It asserts his spirituality. 
It approaches him under no bodily form, but as a 
pure spirit, as the infinite and universal Mind. On 
the other hand, it is the direct influence of Trinita- 



17 



I nanism to materialize men's conceptions of God ; 
and, in truth, this system is a relapse into the error 
of the rudest and earliest ages, into the worship of 
a corporeal God. Its leading feature is, the doc- 
trine of a God clothed with a body, and acting; and 
speaking through a material frame, — of the Infinite 
Divinity dying on a cross : a doctrine, which in 
earthliness reminds us of the mythology of the 
rudest pagans, and which a pious Jew, in the twi- 
light of the Mosaic religion, would have shrunk 
from with horror. It seems to me no small objec- 
tion to the Trinity, that it supposes God to take a 
body in the later and more improved ages of the 
world, when it is plain, that such a manifestation, 
if needed at all, was peculiarly required in the in- 
fancy of the race. The effect of such a system in 
debasing the idea of God, in associating with the 
Divinity human passions and infirmities, is too ob- 
vious to need much elucidation. On the supposition 
that the second person of the Trinity became in- 
carnate, God may be said to be a material being on 
the same general ground, on which this is affirmed 
of man ; for man is material only by the union of 
mind with the body ; and the very meaning of incar- 
nation is, that God took a body, through which he 
acted and spoke, as the human soul operates through 
its corporeal organs. Every bodily affection may 
thus be ascribed to God. Accordingly the Trini- 
tarian, in his most solemn act of adoration, is heard 
to pray in these appalling words ; " Good Lord, 
3 



18 



deliver us ; by the mystery of thy holy incarnation, 
by thy holy nativity and circumcision, by thy bap- 
tism, fasting, and temptation, by thine agony and 
bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, good Lord, 
deliver us." Now I ask you to judge, from the 
principles of human nature, whether to worshippers, 
who adore their God for his wounds and tears, his 
agony, and blood, and sweat, the ideas of corporeal 
existence and human suffering will not predominate 
over the conceptions of a purely spiritual essence ; 
whether the mind, in clinging to the man, will not 
lose the God ; whether a surer method for de- 
pressing and adulterating the pure thought of the 
Divinity could have been devised. 

The Roman Catholics, true to human nature and 
their creed, have sought, by painting and statuary, 
to bring their imagined God before their eyes; and 
have thus obtained almost as vivid impressions of 
him, as if they had lived with him on the earth. 
The Protestant condemns them for using these 
similitudes and representations in their worship; 
but if a Trinitarian, he does so to his own condem- 
nation. For if, as he believes, it was once a duty 
to bow in adoration before the living body of his 
incarnate God, what possible guilt can there be in 
worshipping before the pictured or sculptured me- 
morial of the same being. Christ's body may as 
truly be represented by the artist as any other 
human form ; and its image may be used as effect- 
ually and properly as that of an ancient sage of 



19 



hero to recall him with vividness to the mind. — 
Is it said, that God has expressly forbidden the use 
of images in our worship ? But why was that 
prohibition laid on the Jews ? For this express 
reason, that God had not presented himself to them 
in any form, which admitted of representation. 
Hear the language of Moses, " Take good heed, 
lest ye make you a graven image, for ye saw no 
manner of similitude on the day that the Lord 
spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the 
fire."* If, since that period, God has taken a body, 
then the reason of the prohibition has ceased ; and 
if he took a body, among other purposes, that he 
might assist the weakness of the intellect, which 
needs a material form, then a statue, which lends 
so great an aid to the conception of an absent 
friend, is not only justified, but seems to be re- 
quired. 

This materializing and embodying of the Supreme 
Being, which is the essence of Trinitarianism, can- 
not but be adverse to a growing and exalted piety. 
Human and divine properties, being confounded in 
one being, lose their distinctness. The splendors 
of the Godhead are dimmed. The worshippers of 
an incarnate Deity, through the frailty of their 
nature, are strongly tempted to fasten chiefly on 
his human attributes ; and their devotion, instead 
of rising to the Infinite God, and taking the pecu- 



* Deut. iv. 15, 16. 



20 



liar character which Infinity inspires, becomes rather 
a human affection, borrowing much of its fervor 
from the ideas of suffering, blood, and death. It is 
indeed possible, that this God-man (to use the 
strange phraseology of Trinitarians) may excite the 
mind more easily, than a purely spiritual divinity ; 
just as a tragedy, addressed to the eye and ear, 
will interest the multitude more than the contem- 
plation of the most exalted character. But the 
emotions, which are most easily roused, are not the 
profoundest or most enduring. This human love, 
inspired by a human God, though at first more 
fervid, cannot grow and spread through the soul, 
like the reverential attachment, which an infinite, 
spiritual Father awakens. Refined conceptions of 
God, though more slowly attained, have a more 
quickening and all-pervading energy, and admit 
of perpetual accessions of brightness, life, and 
strength. 

True, we shall be told, that Trinitarianism has 
converted only one of its three persons into a 
human Deity, and that the other two remain purely 
spiritual beings. But who does not know, that 
man will attach himself most strongly to the God 
who has become a man ? Is not this even a duty, 
if the Divinity has taken a body to place himself 
within the reach of human comprehension and 
sympathy ? That the Trinitarian's views of the 
Divinity will be colored more by his visible, tan- 
gible, corporeal God, than by those persons of the 



21 



Trinity, who remain comparatively hidden in their 
invisible and spiritual essence, is so accordant with 
the principles of our nature, as to need no labored 
proof. 

My friends, hold fast the doctrine of a purely 
spiritual divinity. It is one of the great supports 
and instruments of a vital piety. It brings God 
near, as no other doctrine can. One of the lead- 
ing purposes of Christianity, is to give us an ever 
growing sense of God's immediate presence, a 
consciousness of him in our souls. Now just as 
far as corporeal or limited attributes enter into 
our conception of him, we remove him from us» 
He becomes an outward, distant being, instead 
of being viewed and felt as dwelling in the 
soul itself. It is an unspeakable benefit of the 
doctrine of a purely spiritual God, that he can 
be regarded as inhabiting, filling our spiritual na- 
ture ; and through this union with our minds, he 
can and does become the object of an intimacy 
and friendship, such as no embodied being can call 
forth. 

III. Unitarianism is the system most favorable to 
piety, because it presents a distinct and intelligible 
object of worship, a being, whose nature, whilst in- 
expressibly sublime, is yet simple and suited to hu- 
man apprehension. An infinite Father is the most ex- 
alted of all conceptions, and yet the least perplexing. 
It involves no incongruous ideas. It is illustrated 
by analogies from our own nature. It coincides 



with that fundamental law of the intellect, through 
which we demand a cause proportioned to effects. 
It is also as interesting as it is rational ; so that it is 
peculiarly congenial with the improved mind. The 
sublime simplicity of God, as he is taught in Uni- 
tarianism, by relieving the understanding from 
perplexity, and by placing him within the reach of 
thought and affection, gives him peculiar power 
over the soul. Trinitarianism, on the other hand, 
is a riddle. Men call it a mystery, but it is myste- 
rious, not like the great truths of religion, by its 
vastness and grandeur, but by the irreconcilable 
ideas which it involves. One God, consisting of 
three persons or agents, is so strange a being, so 
unlike our own minds and all others with which we 
hold intercourse, is so misty, so incongruous, so 
contradictory, that he cannot be apprehended with 
that distinctness and that feeling of reality, which 
belong to the opposite system. Such a heteroge- 
neous being, who is at the same moment one and 
many ; who includes in his own nature the relations 
of Father and Son, or, in other words, is Father 
and Son to himself ; who, in one of his persons, is 
at the same moment the supreme God and a mortal 
man, omniscient and ignorant, almighty and impo- 
tent ; such a being is certainly the most puzzling 
and distracting object ever presented to human 
thought. Trinitarianism, instead of teaching an 
intelligible God, offers to the mind a monstrous com- 
pound of hostile attributes, bearing plain marks of 



23 

those ages of darkness, when Christianity shed 
but a faint ray, and the diseased fancy teemed with 
prodigies and unnatural creations. In contem- 
plating a being, who presents such different and 
inconsistent aspects, the mind finds nothing to rest 
upon ; and instead of receiving distinct and harmo- 
nious impressions, is disturbed by shifting, unsettled 
images. To commune with such a being must be 
as hard, as to converse with a man of three different 
countenances, speaking with three different tongues. 
The believer in this system must forget it, when he 
prays, or he could find no repose in devotion. 
Who can compare it in distinctness, reality, and 
power, with the simple doctrine of One Infinite 
Father ? 

IV. Unitarianism promotes a fervent and en- 
lightened piety, by asserting the absolute and un- 
bounded perfection of God's character. This is the 
highest service which can be rendered to mankind. 
Just and generous conceptions of the Divinity are 
the souPs true wealth. To spread these, is to con- 
tribute more effectually, than by any other agency, 
to the progress and happiness of the intelligent 
creation. To obscure God's glory is to do greater 
wrong, than to blot out the sun. The character 
and influence of a religion must answer to the views 
which it gives of the Divinity ; and there is a plain 
tendency in that system, which manifests the divine 
perfections most resplendently, to awaken the suh- 
limest and most blessed piety. 



24 



Now Trinitarianism has a fatal tendency to de- 
grade the character of the Supreme Being. By 
multiplying divine persons, it takes from each the 
glory of independent, all-sufficient, absolute per- 
fection. This may be shown in various particulars. 
And in the first place, the very idea, that three 
persons in the divinity are in any degree important, 
implies and involves the imperfection of each ; for 
it is plain, that if one divine person possess all 
possible power, wisdom, love, and happiness, nothing 
will be gained to himself or to the creation by join- 
ing with him two, or two hundred other persons. 
To say that he needs others for any purpose or in 
any degree, is to strip him of independent and 
all-sufficient majesty. If our Father in Heaven, 
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is 
not of himself sufficient to all the wants of his 
creation ; if, by his union with other persons, he can 
accomplish any good to which he is not of himself 
equal ; or if he thus acquires a claim to the least 
degree of trust or hope, to which he is not of him- 
self entitled by his own independent attributes ; then 
it is plain, he is not a being of infinite and absolute 
perfection. Now Trinitarianism teaches, that the 
highest good accrues to the human race from the 
existence of three divine persons, sustaining differ- 
ent offices and relations to the world ; and it re- 
gards the Unitarian, as subverting the foundation of 
human hope, by asserting that the God and Father 
of our Lord Jesus is alone and singly God. Thus 
it derogates from his infinite glory. 



25 



In the next place, Trinitarianism degrades the 
character of the Supreme Being, by laying its dis- 
ciples under the necessity of making such a distribu- 
tion of offices and relations among the three persons, 
as will serve to designate and distinguish them ; 
for in this way it interferes with the sublime con- 
ception of One Infinite Person, in whom all glories 
are concentred. If we are required to worship 
three persons, we must view them in different 
lights, or they will be mere repetitions of each other, 
mere names and sounds, presenting no objects, con- 
veying no meaning to the mind. Some appropriate 
character, some peculiar acts, feelings, and relations 
must be ascribed to each. In other words, the 
glory of all must be shorn, that some special dis- 
tinguishing lustre may be thrown on each. Accord- 
ingly, creation is associated peculiarly with the 
conception of the Father ; satisfaction for human 
guilt with that of the Son ; whilst sanctification, 
the noblest work of all, is given to the Holy Spirit 
as his more particular work. By a still more fatal 
distribution, the work of justice, the office of vin- 
dicating the rights of the Divinity, falls peculiarly to 
the Father; whilst the loveliness of interposing 
mercy clothes peculiarly the person of the Son. 
By this unhappy influence of Trinitarianism, from 
which common minds at least cannot escape, the 
splendors of the Godhead, being scattered among 
three objects, instead of being united in One Infi- 
nite Father, are dimmed : and he, whose mind is 
4 



26 



thoroughly and practically possessed by this sys- 
tem, can hardly conceive the effulgence of glory in 
which the One God offers himself to a pious be- 
liever in his strict unity. 

But the worst has not been told. I observe, 
then, in the third place, that if Three Divine Per- 
sons are believed in, such an administration or 
government of the world must be ascribed to them, 
as will furnish them with a sphere of operation. 
No man will admit three persons into his creed, 
without finding a use for them. Now it is an ob- 
vious remark, that a system of the universe, which 
involves and demands more than One Infinite 
Agent, must be wild, extravagant, and unworthy 
the perfect God ; because there is no possible or 
conceivable good, to which such an agent is not 
adequate. Accordingly we find Trinitarianism con- 
necting itself with a scheme of administration, ex- 
ceedingly derogatory to the divine character. It 
teaches, that the Infinite Father saw fit to put into 
the hands of our first parents the character and 
condition of their whole progeny ; and that, through 
one act of disobedience, the whole race bring with 
them into being a corrupt nature, or are born de- 
praved. It teaches, that the offences of a short 
life, though begun and spent under this disastrous 
influence, merit endless punishment, and that God's 
law threatens this infinite penalty ; and that man 
is thus burdened with a guilt, which no sufferings of 
the created universe can expiate, which nothing 



27 



but the sufferings of an Infinite Being can purge 
away, In this condition of human nature, Trinita- 
rianism finds a sphere of action for its different 
persons. I am aware that some Trinitarians, on 
hearing this statement of their system, may reproach 
me with ascribing to them the errors of Calvinism, 
a system which they abhor as much as ourselves. 
But none of the peculiarities of Calvinism enter 
into this exposition. I have given what I under- 
stand to be the leading features of Trinitarianism 
all the world over ; and the benevolent professors 
of that faith, who recoil from this statement, 
must blame not the preacher, but the creeds 
and establishments by which these doctrines are 
diffused. For ourselves, we look with horror and 
grief on the views of God's government, which are 
naturally and intimately united with Trinitarianism. 
They take from us our Father in Heaven, and 
substitute a stern and unjust lord. Our filial love 
and reverence rise up against them. We say to 
the Trinitarian, touch any thing but the perfections 
of God. Cast no stain on that spotless purity and 
loveliness. We can endure any errors but those, 
which subvert or unsettle the conviction of God's 
paternal goodness. Urge not upon us a system, 
which makes existence a curse, and wraps the 
universe in gloom. Leave us the cheerful light, 
the free and healthful atmosphere, of a liberal and 
rational faith ; the ennobling and consoling influ- 
ences of the doctrine, which nature and revelation 



28 



hi blessed concord teach us, of One Father of Un- 
bounded and Inexhaustible Love. 

V. Unitarianism is peculiarly favorable to piety, 
because it accords with nature, with the world 
around and the world within us ; and through this 
accordance it gives aid to nature, and receives aid 
from it, in impressing the mind with God. We 
live in the midst of a glorious universe, which was 
meant to be a witness and preacher of the Divinity; 
and a revelation from God may be expected to be 
in harmony with this system, and to carry on a 
common ministry with it in lifting the soul to God. 
Now Unitarianism is in accordance with nature. 
It teaches One Father, and so does creation, the 
more it is explored. Philosophy, in proportion as 
it extends its views of the universe, sees in it, more 
and more, a sublime and beautiful unity, and mul- 
tiplies proofs, that all things have sprung from one 
intelligence, one power, one love. The whole 
outward creation proclaims to the Unitarian the 
truth in which he delights. So does his own soul. 
But neither nature nor the soul bears one trace of 
Three Divine Persons. Nature is no Trinitarian. 
It gives not a hint, not a glimpse of a tri-personal 
author. Trinitarianism is a confined system, shut 
up in a few texts, a few written lines, where many 
of the wisest minds have failed to discover it. It 
is not inscribed on the heavens and the earth, not 
borne on every wind, not resounding and re-echoing 
through the universe. The sun and stars say 



29 



nothing of a God of three persons. They all speak 
of the One Father whom we adore. To our ears, 
one and the same voice comes from God's word 
and works, a full and swelling strain, growing 
clearer, louder, more thrilling as we listen, and 
with one blessed influence lifting up our souls to 
the Almighty Father. 

This accordance between nature and revelation in- 
creases the power of both over the mind. Concurring 
as they do in one impression, they make that impres- 
sion deeper. To men of reflection, the conviction 
of the reality of religion is exceedingly heightened, 
by a perception of harmony in the views of it 
which they derive from various sources. Revela- 
tion is never received with so intimate a persuasion 
of its truth, as when it is seen to conspire to the 
same ends and impressions, for which all other things 
are made. It is no small objection to Trinitarian- 
ism, that it is an insulated doctrine, that it reveals 
a God whom we meet nowhere in the universe. 
Three Divine Persons, I repeat it, are found only 
in a few texts, and those so dark, that the gifted 
minds of Milton, Newton, and Locke could not 
find them there. Nature gives them not a whisper 
of evidence. And can they be as real and power- 
ful to the mind, as that One Father, whom the 
general strain and common voice of Scripture, and 
the universal voice of nature call us to adore ? 

VI. Unitarianism favors piety by opening the 
mind to new and ever enlarging views of God, 



30 



Teaching, as it does, the same God with nature, 
it leads us to seek him in nature. It does not shut 
us up in the written word, precious as that mani- 
festation of the Divinity is. It considers revelation, 
not as independent on his other means of instruc- 
tion ; not as a separate agent ; but as a part of the 
great system of God for enlightening and elevating 
the human soul; as intimately joined with creation 
and providence, and intended to concur with them: 
and as given to assist us in reading the volume of 
the universe. Thus Unitarianism, where its genu- 
ine influence is experienced, tends to enrich and 
fertilize the mind ; opens it to new lights, wherever 
they spring up ; and by combining, makes more 
efficient, the means of religious knowledge. Trini- 
tarianism, on the other hand, is a system which 
tends to confine the mind ; to shut it up in what 
is written ; to diminish its interest in the universe ; 
and to disincline it to bright and enlarged views of 
God's works. This effect will be explained, in the 
first place, if we consider, that the peculiarities of 
Trinitarianism differ so much from the teachings 
of the universe, that he, w ho attaches himself to the 
one, will be in danger of losing his interest in the 
other. The ideas of Three Divine Persons, of God 
clothing himself in flesh, of the Infinite Creator 
saving the guilty by transferring their punishment 
to an innocent being, these ideas cannot easily be 
made to coalesce in the mind with that, which 
nature gives, of One Almighty Father and Un- 



31 



bounded Spirit, whom no worlds can contain, and 
whose vicegerent in the human breast pronounces 
it a crime, to lay the penalties of vice on the pure 
and unoffending. 

But Trinitarianism has a still more positive in- 
fluence in shutting the mind against improving 
views from the universe. It tends to throw gloom 
over God's works. Imagining that Christ is to be 
exalted, by giving him an exclusive agency in en- 
lightening and recovering mankind, it is tempted to 
disparage other lights and influences ; and for the 
purpose of magnifying his salvation, it inclines to 
exaggerate the darkness and desperateness of man's 
present condition. The mind, thus impressed, 
naturally leans to those views of nature and of 
society, which will strengthen the ideas of desola- 
tion and guilt. It is tempted to aggravate the 
miseries of life, and to see in them only the marks 
of divine displeasure and punishing justice ; and 
overlooks their obvious fitness and design to awaken 
our powers, exercise our virtues, and strengthen 
our social ties. In like manner it exaggerates the 
sins of men, that the need of an Infinite atone- 
ment may be maintained. Some of the most af- 
fecting tokens of God's love within and around us 
are obscured by this gloomy theology. The glorious 
faculties of the soul, its high aspirations, its sensi- 
bility to the great and good in character, its sym- 
pathy with disinterested and suffering virtue, its 
benevolent and religious instincts, its thirst for a 



32 

happiness not found on earth, these are overlooked 
or thrown into the shade, that they may not disturb 
the persuasion of man's natural corruption. Inge- 
nuity is employed to disparage what is interesting 
in the human character. Whilst the bursts of pas- 
sion in the new-born child are gravely urged, as 
indications of a native rooted corruption ; its bursts 
of affection, its sweet smile, its innocent and inex- 
pressible joy, its loveliness and beauty, are not 
listened to, though they plead more eloquently its 
alliance with higher natures. The sacred and ten- 
der affections of home ; the unwearied watehings 
and cheerful sacrifices of parents ; the reverential, 
grateful assiduity of children, smoothing an aged 
father's or mother's descent to the grave ; woman's 
love, stronger than death ; the friendship of brothers 
and sisters ; the anxious affection, which tends 
around the bed of sickness ; the subdued voice, 
which breathes comfort into the mourner's heart ; 
all the endearing offices, which shed a serene light 
through our dwellings ; these are explained away by 
the thorough advocates of this system, so as to in- 
clude no real virtue, so as to consist w 7 ith a natural 
aversion to goodness. Even the higher efforts of 
disinterested benevolence, and the most unaffected 
expressions of piety, if not connected with what is 
called " the true faith," are, by the most rigid dis- 
ciples of the doctrine which I oppose, resolved into 
the passion for distinction, or some other working 
of " unsanctified nature." Thus Trinitarianism 



and its kindred doctrines have a tendency to veil 
God's goodness, to sully his fairest works, to dim 
the lustre of those innocent and pure affections, 
which a divine breath kindles in the soul, to blight 
the beauty and freshness of creation, and in this way 
to consume the very nutriment of piety. We know, 
and rejoice to know, that in multitudes this tenden- 
cy is counteracted by a cheerful temperament, a be- 
nevolent nature, and a strength of gratitude, which 
bursts the shackles of a melancholy system. But 
from the nature of the doctrine, the tendency exists 
and is strong ; and an impartial observer will often 
discern it resulting in gloomy, depressing views of 
life and the universe. 

Trinitarianism, by thus tending to exclude bright 
and enlarging views of the creation, seems to me 
not only to chill the heart, but to injure the under- 
standing. It does not send the mind far and wide 
for new and elevating objects ; and we have here 
one explanation of the barrenness and feebleness by 
which theological writings are so generally marked. 
It is not wonderful, that the prevalent theology 
should want vitality and enlargement of thought, 
for it does not accord with the perfections of God 
and the spirit of the univ erse. It has not its root 
in eternal truth ; but is a narrow, technical, artifi- 
cial system, the fabrication of unrefined ages, and 
consequently incapable of being blended with the 
new lights which are spreading over the most in- 
teresting subjects, and of being incorporated with 
5 



34 



the results and anticipations of original and progres- 
sive minds. It stands apart in the mind, instead of 
seizing upon new truths, and converting them into 
its own nutriment. With few exceptions, the 
Trinitarian theology of the present day is greatly 
deficient in freshness of thought, and in power 
to awaken the interest and to meet the intellec- 
tual and spiritual wants of thinking men. I see in- 
deed superior minds and great minds among the ad- 
herents of the prevalent system ; but they seem to me 
to move in chains, and to fulfil poorly their high func- 
tion of adding to the wealth of the human intellect. 
In theological discussion, they remind me more of 
Sampson grinding in the narrow mill of the Philis- 
tines, than of that undaunted champion achieving 
victories for God's people, and enlarging the bounds 
of their inheritance. Now a system, which has a 
tendency to confine the mind, and to impair its sensi- 
bility to the manifestations of God in the universe, is 
so far unfriendly to piety, to a bright, joyous, hope- 
ful, ever growing love of the Creator. It tends to 
generate and nourish a religion of a low, dull, mel- 
ancholy tone, such, I apprehend, as now predomi- 
nates in the Christian world. 

VII. Unitarianism promotes piety by the high 
place, which it assigns to piety in the character and 
work of Jesus Christ. What is it, which the 
Unitarian regards as the chief glory of the char- 
acter of Christ ? I answer, his filial devotion, the 
entireness with which he surrendered himself to the 



35 



will and benevolent purposes of God. The piety 
of Jesus, which, on the supposition of his Supreme 
Divinity, is a subordinate and incongruous, is, to 
us, his prominent and crowning, attribute. We 
place his " oneness with God," not in an unintelli- 
gible unity of essence, but in unity of mind and 
heart, in the strength of his love, through which he 
renounced every separate interest, and identified 
himself with his Father's designs. In other words, 
filial piety, the consecration of his whole being to 
the benevolent will of his Father, this is the mild 
glory in which he always offers himself to our 
minds ; and, of consequence, all our sympathies with 
him, all our love and veneration towards him, are 
so many forms of delight in a pious character, and 
our whole knowledge of him incites us to a like sur- 
render of our whole nature and existence to God. 

In the next place, Unitarianism teaches, that the 
highest work or office of Christ is to call forth and 
strengthen piety in the human breast, and thus it 
sets before us this character as the chief acquisition 
and end of our being. To us, the great glory of 
Christ's mission consists in the power, with which 
he " reveals the Father," and establishes the " king- 
dom or reign of God within " the soul. By the 
crown, which he wears, we understand the emi- 
nence which he enjoys in the most beneficent work 
in the universe, that of bringing back the lost mind 
to the knowledge, love, and likeness of its Creator. 
With these views of Christ's office, nothing can 



36 



seem to us so important as an enlightened and pro- 
found piety, and we are quickened to seek it, as the 
perfection and happiness, to which nature and re- 
demption jointly summon us. 

Now we maintain, that Trinitarianism obscures 
and weakens these views of Christ's character and 
work ; and this it does, by insisting perpetually on 
others of an incongruous, discordant nature. It dimin- 
ishes the power of his piety. Making him, as it does, 
the Supreme Being, and placing him as an equal on 
his Father's throne, it turns the mind from him as 
the meekest worshipper of God ; throws into the 
shade, as of very inferior worth, his self-denying obe- 
dience ; and gives us other grounds for revering him, 
than his entire homage, his fervent love, his cheer- 
ful self-sacrifice to the Universal Parent. There is 
a plain incongruity in the belief of his Supreme 
Godhead with the ideas of filial piety and exemplary 
devotion. The mind, which has been taught to re- 
gard him as of equal majesty and authority with the 
Father, cannot easily feel the power of his charac- 
ter as the affectionate son, whose meat it was to do 
his Father's will. The mind, accustomed to make 
him the Ultimate Object of worship, cannot easily 
recognise in him the pattern of that worship, the 
guide to the Most High. The characters are in- 
congruous, and their union perplexing, so that 
neither exerts its full energy on the mind. 

Trinitarianism also exhibits the work, as well as 
character of Christ, in lights less favorable to piety. 



37 



It does not make the promotion of piety his chief 
end. It teaches, that the highest purpose of his 
mission was to reconcile God to man, not man to 
God. It teaches, that the most formidable obstacle 
to human happiness lies in the claims and threaten- 
ings of divine justice. Hence it leads men to prize 
Christ more, for satisfying this justice, and appeas- 
ing God's anger, than for awakening in the human 
soul sentiments of love towards its Father in heaven. 
Accordingly, multitudes seem to prize pardon 
more than piety, and think it a greater boon, to 
escape, through Christ's sufferings, the fire of hell, 
than to receive through his influence the spirit of 
heaven, the spirit of devotion. Is such a system 
propitious to a generous and ever-growing piety ? 

If I may be allowed a short digression, I would 
conclude this head with the general observation, 
that we deem our views of Jesus Christ more in- 
teresting than those of Trinitarianism. We feel 
that we should lose much, by exchanging the dis- 
tinct character and mild radiance, with w hich he 
offers himself to our minds, for the confused and 
irreconcilable glories with which that system la- 
bors to invest him. According to Unitarianism, he 
is a being who may be understood, for he is one 
mind, one conscious nature. According to the op- 
posite faith, he is an inconceivable compound of 
two most dissimilar minds, joining in one person a 
finite and infinite nature, a soul weak and ignorant 
and a soul almighty and omniscient. And is such 



3<6 



a being a proper object for human thought and af- 
fection ? — I add as another important consideration, 
that to us, Jesus, instead of being the second of 
three obscure unintelligible persons, is first and 
preeminent in the sphere in which he acts, and is 
thus the object of a distinct attachment, which he 
shares with no equals or rivals. To us, he is first 
of the sons of God, the Son by peculiar nearness 
and likeness to the Father. He is first of all the 
ministers of God's mercy and beneficence, and 
through him the largest stream of bounty flows to 
the creation. He is first in God's favor and love, 
the most accepted of worshippers, the most preva- 
lent of intercessors. In this mighty universe, fram- 
ed to be a mirror of its author, we turn to Jesus as 
the brightest image of God, and gratefully yield 
him a place in our souls, second only to the Infinite 
Father, to whom he himself directs our supreme 
affection. 

VIII. I now proceed to a great topic. Unita- 
rianism promotes piety, by meeting the ivants of 
man as a sinner. The wants of the sinner may be 
expressed almost in one word. He wants assur- 
ances of mercy in his Creator. He wants pledges, 
that God is Love in its purest form, that is, that He 
has a goodness so disinterested, free, full, strong, 
and immutable, that the ingratitude and disobe- 
dience of his creatures cannot overcome it. This 
unconquerable love, which in Scripture is de- 
nominated grace, and which waits not for merit to 



39 



call it forth, but flows out to the most guilty, is the 
sinner's only hope, and is fitted to call forth the 
most devoted gratitude. Now this grace or mercy 
of God, which seeks the lost, and receives and 
blesses the returning child, is proclaimed by that 
faith, which we advocate, with a clearness and 
energy, which cannot be surpassed. Unitarianism 
will not listen for a moment to the common errors, 
by which this bright attribute is obscured. It will 
not hear of a vindictive wrath in God, which must 
be quenched by blood ; or of a justice, which binds 
his mercy with an iron chain, until its demands are 
satisfied to the full. It will not hear that God 
needs any foreign influence to awaken his mercy ; 
but teaches, that the yearnings of the tenderest 
human parent towards a lost child, are but a faint 
image of God's deep and overflowing compassion 
towards erring man. This essential and unchange- 
able propensity of the divine mind to forgiveness, 
the Unitarian beholds shining forth through the 
whole word of God, and especially in the mission 
and revelation of Jesus Christ, who lived and died 
to make manifest the inexhaustible plenitude of 
divine grace ; and, aided by revelation, he sees this 
attribute of God every where, both around him and 
within him. He sees it in the sun which shines, 
and the rain which descends, on the evil and un- 
thankful ; in the peace, which returns to the mind 
in proportion to its return to God and duty; in the 
sentiment of compassion, which springs up sponta- 



40 



neously in the human breast towards the fallen and 
lost ; and in the moral instinct, which teaches us to 
cherish this compassion as a sacred principle, as an 
emanation of God's infinite love. In truth, Unita- 
rianism asserts so strongly the mercy of God, that 
the reproach thrown upon it is, that it takes from 
the sinner the dread of punishment ; a reproach 
wholly without foundation ; for our system teaches, 
that God's mercy is not an instinctive tenderness, 
which cannot inflict pain ; but an all-wise love, 
which desires the true and lasting good of its ob- 
ject, and consequently desires first for the sinner 
that restoration to purity, without which, shame, 
and suffering, and exile from God and Heaven are 
of necessity and unalterably his doom. Thus Uni- 
tarianism holds forth God's grace and forgiving 
goodness most resplendently ; and by this manifes- 
tation of him, it tends to awaken a tender and con- 
fiding piety ; an ingenuous love, which mourns that 
it has offended ; an ingenuous aversion to sin, not 
because sin brings punishment, but because it sepa- 
rates the mind from this merciful Father. 

Now we object to Trinitarianism, that it ob- 
scures, if it does not annul, the mercy of God. It 
does so in various ways. We have already seen, 
that it gives such views of God's government, that 
we can hardly conceive of this attribute as entering 
into his character. Mercy to the sinner is the 
principle of love or benevolence in its highest form ; 
and surely this cannot be expected from a being 



41 



who brings us into existence burdened with heredi- 
tary guilt, and who threatens with endless pun- 
ishment and wo the heirs of so frail and feeble a 
nature. With such a Creator, the idea of mercy can- 
not coalesce ; and I will say more, that under such 
a government man has no need of mercy ; for he 
owes no allegiance to such a maker, and cannot of 
course contract the guilt of violating it ; and with- 
out guilt, he needs no grace or pardon. The 
severity of this system places him on the ground 
of an injured being. The wrong lies on the side 
of the Creator. 

In the next place, Trinitarian ism obscures God's 
mercy, by the manner in which it supposes pardon 
to be communicated. It teaches, that God remits 
the punishment of the offender, in consequence of 
receiving an equivalent from an innocent person ; 
that the sufferings of the sinner are removed by a 
full satisfaction made to divine justice in the suffer- 
ings of a substitute. And is this " the quality of 
mercy ? " What means forgiveness, but the recep- 
tion of the returning child through the strength of 
parental love ? This doctrine invests the Saviour 
with a claim of merit, with a right to the remission 
of the sins of his followers ; and represents God's 
reception of the penitent as a recompense due to the 
worth of his son. And is mercy, which means 
free and undeserved love, made more manifest, 
more resplendent, by the introduction of merit and 
right as the ground of our salvation ? Could a 
6 g 



surer expedient be invented for obscuring its free- 
ness, and for turning the sinner's gratitude from the 
sovereign who demands, to the sufferer who offers, 
full satisfaction for his guilt ? 

I know it is said, that Trinitarianism magnifies 
God's mercy, because it teaches, that he himself 
provided the substitute for the guilty. But I reply, 
that the work here ascribed to mercy is not the 
most appropriate, nor most fitted to manifest it and 
impress it on the heart. This may be made appa- 
rent by familiar illustrations. Suppose that a cred- 
itor, through compassion to certain debtors, should 
persuade a benevolent and opulent man, to pay him 
in their stead. Would not the debtors see a great- 
er mercy, and feel a weightier obligation, if they 
were to receive a free, gratuitous release ? And 
will not their chief gratitude stray beyond the 
creditor to the benevolent substitute ? Or suppose, 
that a parent, unwilling to inflict a penalty on a 
disobedient but feeble child, should persuade a 
stronger child to bear it. Would not the offender 
see a more touching mercy in a free forgiveness, 
springing immediately from a parent's heart, than 
in this circuitous remission ? And will he not be 
tempted to turn with his strongest love to the gen- 
erous sufferer ? In this process of substitution, of 
which Trinitarianism boasts so loudly, the mercy 
of God becomes complicated with the rights and 
merits of the substitute, and is a more distant 
cause than these in our salvation. These are 



43 



nearer, more visible, and more than divide the 
glory with grace and mercy in our rescue. They 
turn the mind from mercy as the only spring of its 
happiness, and only rock of its hope. Now this is 
to deprive piety of one of its chief means of growth 
and joy. Nothing should stand between the soul 
and God's mercy. Nothing should share with 
mercy the work of our salvation. Christ's inter- 
cession should ever be regarded as an application 
to love and mercy, not as a demand of justice, 
not as a claim of merit. I grieve to say, that 
Christ, as now viewed by multitudes, hides the 
lustre of that very attribute, which it is his great 
purpose to display. I fear, that to many, Jesus 
wears the glory of a more winning, tender mercy, 
than his Father ; and that he is regarded as the 
sinner's chief resource. Is this the way to invigo- 
rate piety ? 

Trinitarians imagine, that there is one view of 
their system, peculiarly fitted to give peace and 
hope to the sinner, and consequently to promote 
gratitude and love. It is this. They say, it pro- 
vides an Infinite substitute for the sinner, than 
which nothing can give greater relief to the bur- 
dened conscience. Jesus, being the second person 
of the Trinity, was able to make infinite satisfac- 
tion for sin ; and what, they ask, in Unitarianism, 
can compare with this ? I have time only for two 
brief replies. And first, this doctrine of an Infinite 
satisfaction, or, as it is improperly called, of an In- 



44 



finite atonement, subverts, instead of building up, 
hope, because it argues infinite severity in the gov- 
ernment which requires it. Did I believe, what 
Trinitarianism teaches, that not the least trans- 
gression, not even the first sin of the dawning mind 
of the child, could be remitted without an infinite 
expiation, I should feel myself living under a 
legislation unspeakably dreadful, under laws writ- 
ten like Draco's in blood ; and instead of thanking 
the sovereign for providing an infinite substitute, I 
should shudder at the attributes, which render this 
expedient necessary. It is commonly said, that an 
infinite atonement is needed to make due and deep 
impressions of the evil of sin. But he, who framed 
all souls and gave them their susceptibilities, ought 
not to be thought so wanting in goodness and wis- 
dom, as to have constituted a universe, which 
demands so dreadful and degrading a method of 
enforcing obedience, as the penal sufferings of a 
God. This doctrine of an Infinite substitute, suf- 
fering the penalty of sin, to manifest God's wrath 
against sin, and thus to support his government, is, 
I fear, so familiar to us all, that its monstrous 
character is overlooked. Let me then set it before 
you, in new terms, and by a new illustration ; and if 
in so doing I may wound the feelings of some who 
hear me, I beg them to believe, that I do it with 
pain, and from no impulse but a desire to serve 
the cause of truth. — Suppose then, that a teacher 
should come among you, and should tell you, that 



45 



the Creator, in order to pardon his own children, 
had erected a gallows in the centre of the universe, 
and had publicly executed upon it, in room of the 
offenders, an Infinite Being, the partaker of his own 
Supreme Divinity ; suppose him to declare, that this 
execution was appointed, as a most conspicuous and 
terrible manifestation of God ? s justice and wrath, 
and of the infinite wo denounced by his law; and 
suppose him to add, that all beings in Heaven and 
earth are required to fix their eyes on this fearful 
sight, as the most powerful enforcement of obedience 
and virtue. Would you not tell him, that he calum- 
niated his Maker ? Would you not say to him, that 
this central gallows threw gloom over the universe ; 
that the spirit of a government, whose very acts of 
pardon were written in such blood, was terror, not 
paternal love ; and that the obedience, which need- 
ed to be upheld by this horrid spectacle, was noth- 
ing worth ? Would you not say to him, that even 
you, in this infancy and imperfection of your being, 
were capable of being wrought upon by nobler 
motives, and of hating sin through more generous 
views ; and that much more the angels, those pure 
flames of love, need not the gallows and an exe- 
cuted God, to confirm their loyalty ? You would 
all so feel at such teaching as I have supposed ; 
and yet how does this differ from the popular doc- 
trine of atonement ? According to this doctrine, we 
have an Infinite Being sentenced to suffer as a sub- 
stitute the death of the cross, a punishment more 



46 



ignominious and agonizing than the gallows, a pun- 
ishment reserved for slaves and the vilest malefac- 
tors ; and he suffers this punishment, that he may 
show forth the terrors of God's law, and strike 
a dread of sin through the universe. — I am in- 
deed aware that multitudes, who profess this 
doctrine, are not accustomed to bring it to their 
minds distinctly in this light ; that they do not or- 
dinarily regard the death of Christ, as a criminal 
execution, as an infinitely dreadful infliction of jus- 
tice, as intended to show, that, without an infi- 
nite satisfaction, they must hope nothing from God. 
Their minds turn by a generous instinct from these 
appalling views, to the love, the disinterestedness, 
the moral grandeur and beauty of the sufferer ; and 
through such thoughts they make the cross a 
source of peace, gratitude, love, and hope ; thus af- 
fording a delightful exemplification of the power of 
the human mind to attach itself to what is good 
and purifying in the most irrational system. But 
let none on this account say, that we misrepresent 
the doctrine of atonement, the primary and essential 
idea of which is, the public execution of a God, for 
the purpose of satisfying justice and awakening a 
shuddering dread of sin. 

I have a second objection to this doctrine of In- 
finite atonement. When examined minutely, and 
freed from ambiguous language, it vanishes into 
air. It is wholly delusion. The Trinitarian tells 
me, that, according to his system, we have an 



47 



infinite substitute ; that the Infinite God was 
pleased to bear our punishment, and consequently 
that pardon is made sure. But I ask him, Do 
I understand you ? Do you mean that the Great 
God, who never changes, whose happiness is the 
same yesterday, to day, and for ever, that this 
Eternal Being, really bore the penalty of my 
sins, really suffered and died f Every pious man, 
when pressed by this question, answers, No. What 
then does the doctrine of Infinite atonement mean ? 
Why, this ; that God took into union with himself 
our nature, that is, a human body and soul ; and 
these bore the suffering for our sins ; and, through 
his union with these, God may be said to have 
borne it himself. Thus this vaunted system goes 
out — in words. The Infinite victim proves to be 
a frail man, and God's share in the sacrifice is a 
mere fiction. I ask with solemnity, Can this doc- 
trine give one moment's ease to the conscience of 
an unbiassed, thinking man ? Does it not unsettle 
all hope, by making the whole religion suspicious 
and unsure ? I am compelled to say, that I see 
in it no impression of majesty, or wisdom, or love, 
nothing worthy of a God ; and when I compare it 
with that nobler faith, which directs our eyes 
and hearts to God's essential mercy, as our only 
hope, I am amazed that any should ascribe to it 
superior efficacy, as a religion for sinners, as a 
means of filling the soul with pious trust and love. 
I know, indeed, that some will say, that, in giving 



48 



up an Infinite atonement, I deprive myself of ail 
hope of divine favor. To such, I would say, You 
do infinite wrong to God's mercy. On that mercy 
I cast myself without a fear. I indeed desire 
Christ to intercede for me. I regard his relation 
to me as God's kindest appointment. Through 
him, " grace and truth come" to me from Heaven, 
and I look forward to his friendship, as among the 
highest blessings of my whole future being. But 
I cannot, and dare not ask him, to offer an infinite 
satisfaction for my sins ; to appease the wrath of 
God; to reconcile the Universal Father to his own 
offspring ; to open to me those arms of Divine 
Mercy, which have encircled and borne me from 
the first moment of my being. The essential and 
unbounded mercy of my Creator is the foundation 
of my hope, and a broader and surer the universe 
cannot give me. 

IX. I now proceed to the last consideration, 
which the limits of this discourse will permit me 
to urge. It has been more than once suggested, 
but deserves to be distinctly stated. I observe, 
then, that Unitarianism promotes piety, because it 
is a rational religion. By this, I do not mean, 
that its truths can be fully comprehended ; for 
there is not an object in nature or religion, which 
has not innumerable connexions and relations be- 
yond our grasp of thought. I mean, that its doc- 
trines are consistent with one another, and with 
all established truth. Unitarianism is in harmony 



49 



with the great and clear principles of revelation ; 
with the laws and power of human nature ; with 
the dictates of the moral sense ; with the noblest 
instincts and highest aspirations of the soul ; and 
with the lights, which the universe throws on the 
character of its author. We can hold this doctrine 
without self-contradiction, without rebelling against 
our rational and moral powers, without putting to 
silence the divine monitor in the breast. And this 
is an unspeakable benefit ; for a religion, thus 
coincident with reason, conscience, and our whole 
spiritual being, has the foundations of universal 
empire in the breast ; and the heart, finding no 
resistance in the intellect, yields itself wholly, 
cheerfully, without doubts or misgivings, to the 
love of its Creator. 

To Trinitarianism we object, what has always 
been objected to it, that it contradicts and degrades 
reason, and thus exposes the mind to the w T orst de- 
lusions. Some of its advocates, more courageous 
than prudent, have even recommended " the pros- 
tration of the understanding " as preparatory to its 
reception. Its chief doctrine is an outrage on our 
rational nature. Its three persons, who constitute 
its God, must either be frittered away into three 
unmeaning distinctions, into sounds signifying 
nothing ; or they are three conscious agents, who 
cannot, by any human art or metaphysical device, 
be made to coalesce into one being ; who cannot 
be really viewed as one mind, having one conscious- 
7 



50 



Bess and one will. Now a religious system, the 
cardinal principle of which offends the understand- 
ing, very naturally conforms itself throughout to 
this prominent feature, and becomes prevalently 
irrational. He, who is compelled to defend his 
faith in any particular by the plea, that human 
reason is so depraved through the fall, as to be an 
inadequate judge of religion, and that God is 
honored by our reception of what shocks the in- 
tellect, seems to have no defence left against 
accumulated absurdities. According to these prin- 
ciples, the fanatic, who exclaimed, M I believe, be- 
cause it is impossible," had a fair title to canoniz- 
ation. Reason is too Godlike a faculty, to be 
insulted with impunity. Accordingly Trinitarian- 
ism, as we have seen, links itself with several 
degrading errors ; and its most natural alliance is 
with Calvinism, that cruel faith, which, stripping 
God of mercy and man of power, has made Chris- 
tianity an instrument of torture to the timid, and 
an object of doubt or scorn to hardier spirits. 
I repeat it, a doctrine which violates reason like 
the Trinity, prepares its advocates, in proportion 
as it is incorporated into the mind, for worse and 
worse delusions. It breaks down the distinc- 
tions and barriers between truth and falsehood. 
It creates a diseased taste for prodigies, fictions, 
and exaggerations, for startling mysteries, and wild 
dreams of enthusiasm. It destroys the relish for 
the simple, chaste, serene beauties of truth. Es- 



51 



pecially when the prostration of understanding is 
taught as an act of piety, we cannot w T onder, that 
the grossest superstitions should be devoured, and 
that the credulity of the multitude should keep 
pace with the forgeries of imposture and fanaticism. 
The history of the church is the best comment on 
the effects of divorcing reason from religion ; and if 
the present age is disburdened of many of the 
superstitions, under which Christianity and human 
nature groaned for ages, it owes its relief in no 
small degree to the reinstating of reason in her 
long violated rights. 

The injury to religion, from irrational doctrines 
when thoroughly believed, is immense. The human 
soul has a unity. Its various faculties are adapted 
to one another. One life pervades it; and its 
beauty, strength, and growth, depend on nothing 
so much, as on the harmony and joint action of all 
its principles. To w^ound and degrade it in any 
of its powers, and especially in the noble and dis- 
tinguishing power of reason, is to inflict on it 
universal injury. No notion is more false, than 
that the heart is to thrive by dwarfing the intellect; 
that perplexing doctrines are the best food of piety ; 
that religion flourishes most luxuriantly in mists 
and darkness. Reason was given for God as its 
great object ; and for him it should be kept sacred, 
invigorated, clarified, protected from human usurp- 
ation, and inspired with a meek self-reverence. 



52 



The soul never acts so effectually or joyfully, as 
when all its powers and affections conspire, as 
when thought and feeling, reason and sensibility, 
are called forth together by one great and kindling 
object. It will never devote itself to God with its 
whole energy, whilst its guiding faculty sees in 
him a being to shock and confound it. We want 
a harmony in our inward nature. We want a 
piety, which will join light and fervor, and on 
which the intellectual power will look benignantly. 
We want religion to be so exhibited, that, in the 
clearest moments of the intellect, its signatures of 
truth will grow 7 brighter ; that instead of tottering, 
it will gather strength and stability from the pro- 
gress of the human mind. These wants we be- 
lieve to be met by Unitarian Christianity, and 
therefore we prize it as the best friend of piety. 

I have thus stated the chief grounds, on which I 
rest the claim of Unitarianism to the honor of 
promoting an enlightened, profound, and happy 
piety. 

Am 1 now asked, w^hy we prize our system, 
and why we build churches for its inculcation. If 
I may be allowed to express myself in the name of 
conscientious Unitarians, who apply their doctrine 
to their own hearts and lives, I w r ould reply thus. 
We prize and would spread our views, because we 
believe that they reveal God to us in greater glory, 



53 



and bring us nearer to him, than any other. V/ e 
are conscious of a deep want, which the creation 
cannot supply, the want of a Perfect Being, on 
whom the strength of our love may be centered, and 
of an Almighty Father, in whom our weaknesses, 
imperfections, and sorrows may find resource ; and 
such a Being and Father, Unitarian Christianity 
sets before us. For this we prize it above all 
price. We can part with every other good. We 
can endure the darkening of life's fairest prospects. 
But this bright, consoling doctrine of One God, 
even the Father, is dearer than life, and we cannot 
let it go. — Through this faith, every thing grows 
brighter to our view- Born of such a Parent, we 
esteem our existence an inestimable gift. We 
meet every where our Father, and his presence is 
as a sun shining on our path. We see him in his 
w T orks, and hear his praise rising from every spot 
which we tread. W T e feel him near in our soli- 
tudes, and sometimes enjoy communion w 7 ith him 
more tender than human friendship. We see him 
in our duties, and perform them more gladly, be- 
cause they are the best tribute we can offer our 
Heavenly Benefactor. Even the consciousness 
of sin, mournful as it is, does not subvert our 
peace ; for in the mercy of God, as made mani- 
fest in Jesus Christ, we see an inexhaustible 
fountain of strength, purity, and pardon for all 
who, in filial reliance, seek these heavenly gifts.— 
Through this faith, we are conscious of a new 



54 



benevolence springing up to our fellow creatures, 
purer and more enlarged than natural affection. 
Towards all mankind we see a rich and free love 
flowing from the common Parent, and touched by 
this love, we are the friends of all. We com- 
passionate the most guilty, and would win them 
back to God. — Through this faith, we receive the 
happiness of an ever enlarging hope. There is no 
£ood too vast for us to anticipate for the universe 
or for ourselves, from such a Father as we believe 
in. The horrible thought, of a large proportion 
of our fellow creatures being cast by an angry God 
into tortures unutterable by human tongue, and 
sentenced to spend eternity in shrieks of agony, 
which will never reach the ear or touch the heart 
of their Creator : this dreadful anticipation, which 
would shroud the universe in more than sepulchral 
^loom, and is enough to break every heart which is 
not stone, this forms no part of our conception of the 
purposes and government of the God and Father 
of Jesus Christ. Whilst we believe, that every 
new view of the constitution and administration of 
the universe will reveal more strikingly the solemn 
and indissoluble connexion between sin and suffer- 
ing:, we have equal confidence, that God : s equity 
and kindness towards all his creatures will be 
more and more triumphantly and gloriously dis- 
played. W e have an earnest of heaven in the 
assurance, that all things are tending to a consum- 
mation, which, however undefined and incompre- 



DO 

hensible now, will fill the benevolent heart with 
unmingled joy. — Through this faith, we not only 
hope for the universe, but hope for ourselves. We 
are told, indeed, that our faith will not prove an 
anchor in the last hour. But we have known 
those, whose departure it has brightened ; and our 
experience of its power, in trial and peril, has 
proved it to be equal to all the wants of human 
nature. We doubt not, that, to its sincere follow- 
ers, death will be a transition to the calm, pure, 
joyful mansions prepared by Christ for his disciples, 
There Ave expect to meet that great and good De- 
liverer. With the eye of faith, we already see 
him looking round him with celestial love on all 
of every name, who have imbibed his spirit. His 
spirit; his loyal and entire devotion to the will of 
his Heavenly Father ; his universal unconquerable 
benevolence, through which he freely gave from 
his pierced side his blood, his life for the salvation 
of the world ; this divine love, and not creeds, 
and names, and forms, will then be found to at- 
tract his supreme regard. This spirit we trust 
to see in multitudes of every sect and name ; and 
we trust, too, that they, who now reproach us, 
will at that day recognise, in the dreaded Uni- 
tarian, this only badge of Christ, and will bid 
him welcome to the joy of our common Lord. — 
I have thus stated the views, with which we 
have reared this building. We desire to glorify 
God, to promote a purer, nobler, happier piety. 



56 



Even if we err in doctrine, we think, that these 
motives should shield us from reproach ; should 
disarm that intolerance, which would exclude us 
from the church on earth, and from our Father's 
house in Heaven. 

We end, as we began, by offering up this build- 
ing to the Only Living and True God. We have 
erected it amidst our private habitations, as a re- 
membrancer of our Creator. We have reared it 
in this busy city, as a retreat for pious meditation 
and prayer. We dedicate it to the King and 
Father Eternal, the King of kings and Lord of 
lords. We dedicate it to his Unity, to his unrival- 
led and undivided Majesty. We dedicate it to the 
praise of his free, unbought, unmerited Grace. 
We dedicate it to Jesus Christ, to the memory of 
his love, to the celebration of his divine virtue, to 
the preaching of that truth, which he sealed with 
blood. We dedicate it to the Holy Spirit, to 
the sanctifying influence of God, to those celestial 
emanations of light and strength, which visit and 
refresh the devout mind. We dedicate it to pray- 
ers and praises, which we trust will be continued 
and perfected in Heaven. We dedicate it to social 
worship, to Christian intercourse, to the commun- 
ion of saints. We dedicate it to the cause of pure 
morals, of public order, of equity, uprightness, 
and general good will. We dedicate it to Christian 
admonition, to those warnings, remonstrances, and 



57 



earnest and tender persuasions, by which the sin- 
ner may be arrested, and brought back to God, 
We dedicate it to Christian consolation, to those 
truths which assuage sorrow, animate penitence, 
and lighten the load of human anxiety and fear. 
We dedicate it to the doctrine of Immortality, to 
sublime and joyful hopes which reach beyond the 
grave. In a word, we dedicate it to the great 
work of perfecting the human soul, and fitting it 
for nearer approach to its Author, Here may 
heart meet heart. Here may man meet God, 
From this place may the song of praise, the ascrip- 
tion of gratitude, the sigh of penitence, the prayer 
for grace, and the holy resolve, ascend, as fragrant 
incense, to Heaven ; and through many generations 
may parents bequeath to their children this house, 
as a sacred spot, where God had " lifted upon them 
his countenance," and given them pledges of his 
everlasting love. 



8 



NOTES 



Page 19. — The arrangement of the text from Deuteron- 
omy, quoted on this page, is a little changed, to put the 
reader immediately in possession of the meaning. 

Eighth Head. — Under this head, I have more than once 
used the word atonement in the sense in which Trinitarians 
generally use it ; and without doing so, my object might not 
have been sufficiently clear to some of my readers. I ought to 
say, however, that I do not consider this sense as the true one, 
or as agreeing with the meaning which belongs to the term 
in the Scriptures ; and I always lament the necessity of using 
a Scriptural word in a manner, which may countenance a 
misapprehension of its real import. This subject of atone- 
ment needs a much more extensive discussion, than the 
limits and design of this sermon would allow. I have a 
strong impression, that the prevalent views of it may easily 
be shown to be false, though the true views of it may not so 
easily be established. I believe, too, that time will prove, 
that thinking men of opposite sects differ less on this point 
than is imagined. It will be observed, that I have not under- 
taken to state the way or method by which Christ's sufferings 
contribute to human salvation. On this point there is a 
diversity of opinion. I have thought it sufficient to state the 
general principle in which Unitarian Christians agree. They 
all believe, that God's love or mercy is " the beginning and 
the end " of human salvation, and that this gives to Christ's 
sufferings and intercession their efficacy. 



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